Aladdin Pantomime Characters: A Complete Guide
Search ‘Aladdin pantomime characters’ and you'll mostly find plot summaries. What you actually need before casting is different: who carries the comedy, who carries the plot, and who's going to eat up rehearsal time working out a running gag. In our version, that's Widow Twankey and Wishy Washy on comedy duty, Abanazar on plot duty, and two rival genies turning up in Act Two to complicate absolutely everything. Here's the full cast.
Aladdin and Wishy Washy
Aladdin is the title role and the romantic lead, a good-natured young man who ‘can't stay out of trouble,’ according to his own mother. He's brave when it counts. He's hopeless with a plan. He's smitten with Princess Jasmine from the moment he sees her, and the script doesn't waste time hiding it. (Did someone say confessional panto love song?!)
Wishy Washy, Aladdin's brother, does most of the heavy lifting comedically. He opens the show talking straight to the audience, keeps up a steady stream of one-liners throughout, and gets far too involved in the classic bits of panto business his mother sets running. Who is Wishy Washy in Aladdin, if you're new to the title? Traditionally he's Widow Twankey's other son and the comic engine of the whole show, and our version keeps that job description exactly. (You'll sometimes see him spelled Wishee Washee elsewhere; same character, same role, different laundrette.)
Widow Twankey, the Dame
The name Widow Twankey has been gracing Aladdin pantomime scripts for ages. It goes back to Twankay, a tea popular in 1860s London, and the laundrette setting is as traditional as the name itself: Twankey has been washing other people's clothes on stage for well over a century. What she does with the job is where our version earns its keep.
Her opening monologue is a proper Dame set piece: a rattling list of who she's washed for ('the prince's pants, the king's coats and the queen's qu-ardigans'), a comedically emotional description of her loneliness, and a flirtation routine with the audience that ends, inevitably, with her getting a new boyfriend; for one night only! Her late husband Frankie's denim handkerchief becomes a running joke and audience call and response and shouting back 'Frankie Twankey's Manky Hanky' is certainly not a piece of audience participation your punters will forget in a hurry. It's the kind of bit that gets funnier every time it repeats, and even helps our heroes win the day at the end; exactly what a good running gag should do! If you're drawn to occupation-led Dames like this one, our Hansel and Gretel and Beauty and the Beast Dames follow the same principle, a job that generates the jokes rather than a costume that generates the laughs.
Abanazar, the villain
Abanazar is the traditional villain of every Aladdin back to the earliest pantomimes, and this version doesn't soften him. He gets a classic baddie entrance: an evil chord, a direct address to the audience inviting the boos, and a warning not to mangle his name into 'A Banana': 'it isn't funny, and if you do, you'll be the one with a split'. He's a proper scheming wizard rather than a bumbling baddie and is a great role for someone who loves to wind up the audience.
In our version, Abanazar sends Aladdin into the cave to fetch the lamp, and later, in Act Two, forces Jasmine into an engagement by threatening the Empress. He's unpleasant when the plot needs him to be, which is what makes the comedy around him land: a villain who's actually a threat makes the jokes at his expense funnier, not softer.
Princess Jasmine and the Empress
Jasmine has more spine than the average principal girl and isn’t just a damsel-in-distress plot device. From the off, she actively rejects a parade of absent, invisible and otherwise hopeless princes, and is upfront about wanting to marry for love rather than rank. The Empress, her mother, is warm rather than tyrannical: a woman who genuinely wants her daughter settled and, by the end of the show, admits she should have listened to what Jasmine wanted all along. They share a scene where the Empress describes her own journey to marriage that seems to go on just a little too long, but then hits home as one of the most long winded and groan-worthy jokes of the show. Crucially, Jasmine and the Empresses’ relationship gives the script an emotional beat that isn't just plot mechanics, and it's the reason the ending lands as more than a wedding.
Alexa, the Spirit of the Ring
Every Aladdin needs a Spirit of the Ring, traditionally a genie bound to serve whoever rubs it. Ours reimagines her as a smart assistant. Abanazar summons Alexa and gets maddening, algorithmic precision in return: she can't share Aladdin's location ('GDPR, I'm afraid'), she recommends a magic carpet with a Prime subscription joke built in, and she gives driving directions in metres rather than mysticism. It's a clean modern twist on a traditional role rather than a replacement for one, and it's built to be flexible: the part works fine as a voice-only role if a group is short on cast, or leans further into the joke with an actual AI voice if they want to push it!
The Genie of the Lamp and Jean, Genie of the Jeans
Where our Aladdin properly departs from tradition is here. The Genie of the Lamp is a standard you’d expect in any Aladdin panto script, although slightly unconventionally he first appears wrapped in a towel and shower cap, mid-toothbrush, annoyed at being summoned without warning after a thousand years off duty. Then he introduces a second genie entirely. Jean, Genie of the Jeans, lives in a pair of denim trousers and talks like he's never left the noughties. The two bicker like flatmates rather than granting wishes with any dignity, and the script pays that rivalry off properly in Act Two, when their opposing wishes collide. Splitting one lamp gag into two genie roles also means more casting flexibility for a group that wants to spread the comedy further, or fewer if they'd rather double them up.
If a magical double act is what draws you to this title, it's worth knowing our other scripts use the device too, Fairy Sparkles in Cinderella and Fairy Haricot in Jack and the Beanstalk both play a similar role of comic magical support rather than a straight fairy godmother.
Who it suits
Between the named principals, Aladdin, Jasmine, Wishy Washy, Widow Twankey, the Empress, Abanazar, Alexa, the Genie of the Lamp, Jean, and a flexible ensemble of townsfolk and guards, this sits comfortably as one of our pantomime scripts for small casts, with room to grow the ensemble for a bigger group. If you're weighing it against the rest of the catalogue, our full range of pantomime scripts is worth a browse.
If this cast list looks like a fit, the next step is reading it yourself. Request a free Perusal Script for Aladdin or head to the Aladdin script page for the full synopsis and details.